Compensation Sought, IBM Cards. WWII Roma Persecution. Romani and the Holocaust. Update and Topic Review

Reparations. Persecution.
Roma in the Holocaust
Update, and topic review
GIRCA v IBM

Records and Courts Fail to Compensate.
Too Late. Sorry.  Now, Go Away.

Gypsies Sue IBM
IBM wins.


Next step:  Put online all the pleadings, arguments, evidence. 
For educational purposes.

A.  Procedural setting

The Roma case is dismissed in 2006, for not having been filed in the "time limit".  See Holocaust suit.  See Swiss High Court Rejects Gypsy Holocaust Suit Versus IBM, Cites Time Limit, at http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Swiss-high-court-rejects-Gypsy-Holocaust-suit-versus-IBM-cites-time-limit/2006/08/19/1155408031630.html

Read about the lawsuit.  Try Gypsies vs. IBM. But there must be a more formal docket name, for IBM facilitating the holocaust by providing the punch cards and other expertise for the holocaust.  Go instead to http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/08/ramasastry.holocaust.ibm/index.html. I have not read or followed up on it yet.

War compensation has been provided to other target groups, but has been far less to Gypsy groups.  Action is moving in that direction, says site.  What does Mitt Romney say? Romney Roma Romani Rom'nie?  Or is later success enough to disavow earlier ancestral connections in persecution.

See suit filed in Geneva in 2002 by the Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action Association (GIRCA) http://www.business-humanrights.org/Categories/Lawlawsuits/Lawsuitsregulatoryaction/LawsuitsSelectedcases/IBMlawsuitHolocaustclaimbyGypsies

It had been progressing.  See http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/jun/23/secondworldwar.internationalnews

But who can sue IBM and win anyway? There will always be a way to put equity last, and technicality first where money is involved.
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B.  Review:  Did the Roma have a case? 
The Gypsy - Roma Experience

1.  Gypsies at Lodz, or Litzmannstadt, Ghetto. Poland.

There is now a "ghetto route" that interested persons may walk in the old ghetto at Lodz, with sites marked and events or inhabitants described. The annual commemoration is pending, see see http://www.ghetto.lodz.pl/index.php/.  At 83 Wojska Polskiego Street, for example, stop number 34, where Gypsies were processed, and transported to their deaths.  Fair use quote from the brochure:

"At this site, German authorities established a camp for Gypsies (Zigeunerlager) in the area boarded by Sulzfelder Str. (Wojska Polskiego), Kondradstr. (Głowackiego), Kriminalstr. (Starosikawską) i  Blechgasse (obrońców Westerplatte) Streets. Of the 5000 Roma men, women and children deported from Austria and incrarcerated here between November 5, 1941 and January 12, 1942, over 600 died from diseases or were murdered in the camp; The remaining were gassed in the death camp at Kulmhof am Ner (Chełmno-Upon-Ner) during the week of January 5 to 12, 1942."

Fair use.  See http://www.ghetto.lodz.pl/index.php/en/memorial

2.  Gypsies at Buchenwald

Roma at Buchenwald. Find this memorial and account at The Nizkor Project, Germany's Romany and Sinti People, Commemoration of Buchenwald, Germany, see ://ftp.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/buchenwald/press/reuters-040395b.html/  There is a new memorial for the group, that prefers the Romany and Sinti designation, and testimonials as to the brutality there.

Find this appalling statement at the Nizkor.org site,  that the Camp remained open for business after the War and 10,000 people died in it under the administration of the Soviets: Fair use --

It will also acknowledge another fact hushed up under communism -- that for five years after World War Two, Buchenwald remained in use as an internment camp run by Soviet occupation forces. Around 10,000 inmates, mostly Germans, died. Here is Buchenwald, in Germany. See Germany Road Ways, Buchenwald. Read the buildup to the WWII holocaust at http://www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistBeforeHitler. Census, registries, forced photographs, fingerprinting, surveillance, restrictions on travel, imposed detention.

Holocaust. Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany.

3.  No individual victims' names equivalent for Yad Vashem for Roma found to date

Records for individuals such as Jews in the Holocaust have been consolidated, as part of an ongoing effort to collect, coordinate, report.  See http://ww/yadvashem.org, and the online victims' names list.

That takes money and influence, as well as perseverance.  But perseverance gets nowhere without money and influence, is that so?

Read about the Holocaust, its events and Nazi-Fascist country-city laws leading up to it in Europe, and more low-key everyday persecutions, and the horrendous results, at http://www.holocaust-trc.org/sinti.htm

Estimates of Gypsy deaths alone run from 300,000 to 1,000,000 - these were largely illiterate people, without the birth or other records of other groups like the Jews, so the numbers range, and are derived from other information -- see http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/08/ramasastry.holocaust.ibm/index.
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However, there are other sites with collected testimonials and information about groups, and anecdotes , see http://remember.org/witness/wit.vic.gyp1.html/  That site points out the German dilemma -- that Roma were Aryans, but did not fit the German ideal.

Nonetheless, Roma deportation and execution was put under Himmler's control, and he carried on. The remember.org site includes information and anecdotes as to Treblinka, that also received and executed Jews.

A history of Roma history of persecution, and the Holocaust, is rather in narrative form, the group experience; not individual records or testimonials as to those individuals.

Search each concentration camp, roma in ________, gypsies in ____________/

And the history is expressed in creative arts.  See Site: The Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. XLII , No. 162, Summer 2001. This is "The Holocaust in Gypsy Folk Poetry," by Karoli Bari. http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no162/064.html.

As in the Buchenwald site, above, designating certain groups as expendable, such as Roma even in concentration camps, is a global human failing.  See  The Common Good, Who Speaks for It, fodder post.

4.  Gypsies in Auschwitz - Birkenau

Roma were designated as enemies of the Third Reich, see http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=3/  As such, they could be isolated and exterminated, and were. As were the Jews, Gypsies were identified as racially inferior, thus not eligible for the privileges of others. A special Gypsy family camp at Auschwitz was set up to receive what appears to be most all of the Roma population, excluding the thousands at Lodz who had already been killed there or at Kulmhof, and then dispose of them.

See Auschwitz, in Poland, at Poland Road Ways, Auschwitz, an extermination camp.

See also Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, Places of Petr Ginz.

The German action was extreme, but unique in degree, not concept. Many cultures designate certain groups as dispensable, despicable, unworthy, deserving of what they get - usually a back of the hand, and even genocide. See the fodder concept for people who are attacked, open to targeting, with corresponding belief systems justifying it, the expendables.

In modern times, or among the more affluent, this can include even people with money who are fed bad food, expensive medicines, sold ideas that are not supported by a religious founder. Watch who gets a profit at the expense of the others. Treated as fodder.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp, crematory

These are the ovens, the crematoria with the chimney, at Auschwitz, Poland, that borders Slovakia, see Poland Road Ways, Auschwitz.

There was a special "family" camp at Auschwitz for gypsies, where entire families were imprisoned together. Read the US Holocaust Museum accounts at http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219.

That source says that, of the million gypsies in Europe before the killings, some 220,000 were killed, many were killed by mobile killing units, especially in Russia and Ukraine, without records. See Babi Yar, Kiev, Ukraine, gypsies, Jews, others, at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/babiyar.html; and at http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/babi_yar.htm

5.  Roma in Theresienstadt



Theresienstadt, Terezin, Train transport, loading, unloading area CZ

Here is the station area at Theresienstadt CZ, where the trains brought in the Jews, Gypsies and other targeted persons during WWII. This was an old garrison town in the Czech Republic, turned ghetto and way-station to extermination and labor camps. Tens of thousands also died here.

Were there Gypsies in Terezin.

There were hierarchies even among undesirables, that shunted the bottom people mostly elsewhere, see Places of Petr Ginz; and the Terezin Study Guide, developed to teach students the history and issues.  See http://www.american.edu/cas/terezin/upload/Terezin-study-guide.pdf/

It appears that Theresienstadt was originally designated as a destination for "privileged" Jews, those in bureaucratic positions, or otherwise in some position of influence. Is that so?  Read the history at the study guide. From Terezin, however, where people also died from the conditions, they were transported to further camps for execution or slave labor.

6. Roma at Jasenovac, Croatia



Hear and see this memorial at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4317038589131761601#Ustaški zločin nad civilima - Jasenovac.  Croatian Death Camp. This site is in Croatian, but it takes no translating. Holocaust footage. More graphic than you probably have ever seen.  Ever.
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Numbers vary wildly - no one appears willing to dig up and count, lest the results support the other side, but we have seen 85,000 to 600,000 killed, and it is difficult to find for the different groups killed here, but gypsies are included specifically.  See http://www.vosizneias.com/60743/2010/07/25/jasenovac-croatia-peres-croatian-wwii-camp-was-a-show-of-sadism/

Jasenovac's artifacts were sent mostly to the Holocaust Memorial Center in Washington DC.

Transport train, boxcars, Jasenovac Concentration Camp, Croatia

See Jasenovac at Croatia Road Ways.

The transport train on display at Jasenovac is riddled. We cannot tell if the bullet-type holes are vandalism from later, or original.

The museum building at Jasenovac is locked and broken. Not even a rest room. I don't think they want you there. The area's walkway is used as a bike path.

7.  Roma at Mauthausen


See Roma, Gypsies at Mauthausen, Austria; and Austria Road Ways, Mauthausen KZ Konzentrationslager.

C.  Roma Experience of the Holocaust in Literature 

 
1.  "Zoli" by Colum McCann, see http://www.amazon.com/Zoli-Novel-Colum-McCann/dp/1400063728

"Zoli" at 47-48: Slovakian Gypsies were sent mostly to work camps, beaten, tortured, jailed, curfews, spitting, badges, barbed wire. In other countries, the focus was on extermination - but Slovakia was a satellite state. Some reprieve, not much.

After Hitler came to power, read about the events at http://www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistHitlerPower. Laws against intermarriage, transports to Dachau and Buchenwald (see photo), registrations, differential passes, Auschwitz, and continuing throughout WWII, see http://www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistGermanOccupat.

2. Poetry:  See FN 1; and a search for holocaust in literature

D.  Why the surprise at Roma invisibility?

1.  Gypsy illiteracy reduces their visibility.

The literate ones also are remembered because they wrote, or others wrote of them, like Ann Frank in Amsterdam, or Petr Ginz in Prague. See Netherlands Road Ways, Anne Frank and Etty Hillesum, diarists. Gypsies often died unknown.

Some expressions survive. See FN 1.

2.   Impact of Holocaust, Gypsies and Roma Populations, News, research

The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, see site at http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219, provides the history and photos. Still, there may be an agenda there, to present what is sought to be presented.

Need more emphasis on the impact of Nazi policy on this group.

The Holocaust Museum site gives this information about Reynhard Heidrich (a/k/a Heydrich), a high-ranking Nazi officer who was assassinated by Czech resistance in Prague, see Places of Petr Ginz, Occupation. Heidrich had big plans for deporting 30,000 gypsies to the camps, but was persuaded to focus instead on the Jews, reducing the numbers of deportations at that time.

Zoli, in the novel of the same name, speaks of the mass killing of Gypsies at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, at p. ___.  Author:  please provide more.

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FN 1

Fair use quote from a long article, here believed to be an unknown author, a Gypsy poem in experiencing the holocaust.  From this Hungarian site, a journal in English  http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no162/064.html, now at http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/index.shtml (but we cannot locate the poem - have emailed to confirm fair use, and do hope acceptable)

"Little bird, o little birdie,
Fly far away, carry the news,
Tell how I'm in constant terror,
tell how I'm in constant terror!
German lager, how hard it is,
German lager, how hard it is,
The prison guards are so evil,
The prison guards are so evil!

"Hey there, Hitler, curses on you.
May God trample upon your face
like people walk upon the streets,
like people walk upon the streets.

"Machine guns are barking away,
Machine guns are barking away,
My pursuers are getting close,
My pursuers are getting close.

"God, give me some of your fortune,
Give a little bit of your own,
Help me get onto trackless tracks,
Help me pass along trackless tracks.

"God, send me a drop of rainfall,
God, send me a drop of rainfall,
Mingle it up well with snowflakes,
Mingle it up well with snowflakes!

"Mingle it up with snowflakes,
Mingle it up with snowflakes,
So the green shoots of grass may grow,
So the green shoots of grass may grow!

"Cover the trail of my footprints,
Cover the trail of my footprints,
So I may find tranquillity,
So I may find tranquillity!

"God, oh God! How you have thrashed me,
God, oh God! How you have thrashed me,
Perhaps nobody more than me,
Perhaps nobody more than me!

"German lager, German lager,
There a gun was always barking,
All my family was wiped out,
All my family was wiped out!

"I've lost all my family,
I've lost all my family,
Oh, what can I do, all alone,
Oh, what can I do, all alone!"